Kharagpur, Dec. 2: The Indian Institute of Technology here will open a law school that will offer degree and diploma courses in intellectual property law.

IIT Kharagpur director S.K. Dubey today announced that the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Law will be functional from July.

It will have 50 seats each for degree and diploma courses, said officials associated with the project. Those who have passed BTech or MSc from a recognised university will be eligible for admission to the three-year LLB course in intellectual property law. The one-and-a-half-year diploma course will be open to lawyers.

“So long, people had the notion that the IIT only dealt with engineering and technology. But with globalisation, we have also tried to change our character over the past decade by opening courses in management and technologies involved in medical science. Laws aimed at preserving intellectual property have been enacted in our country and we think the area is important in modern-day perspective,” Dubey said at a workshop on Intellectual Property Right Education and Research.

Kalyan Chakraborty, the project leader and a professor of the IIT’s Vinod Gupta School of Management, said: “There is an increasing awareness about the necessity of preservation of intellectual property and specialisation on laws relating to patent, copyright, cyber law, IT and entertainment is essential.”

The institute would be the first of its kind in the country, Dubey said. The IIT has granted Rs 10 crore for the project.